Cognitive processing of emotional information during menstrual phases in women with and without postpartum depression: differential sensitivity to changes in gonadal steroids

Miki Bloch, Liat Helpman, Eva Gilboa-Schechtman, Inbar Fried-Zaig

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Gonadal steroids (GSs) have been repeatedly shown to play a central role in the onset of postpartum depression (PPD). The underlying mechanisms, however, are only partially understood. We investigated the relationship between cognitive processing of emotional information and naturally occurring hormonal fluctuations in women with and without previous PPD. Euthymic, parous women, with a history (hPPD, n=32) and without a history (nhPPD, n=43) of PPD, were assessed during late-follicular and late-luteal phases. Participants were administered cognitive tasks assessing attention (dot-probe; emotional Stroop), evaluation (self-referential encoding) and incidental recall, and self-report measures. Menstrual-phase-specific differences were found between late-follicular vs. late-luteal phases among hPPD only, with depression-associated patterns observed in the late-luteal phase on the self-referential encoding and incidental recall task and emotional Stroop task, but not on the dot-probe task. No main effect for menstrual phase was found on any of the tasks or questionnaires, apart from the brooding component of rumination. Women with hPPD demonstrate a differential bias in cognitive processing of emotional information that is menstrual phase dependent, and did not correspond to similar difference in mood symptoms. These biases may reflect sensitivity to gonadal steroid fluctuations that are associated with PPD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)753-762
Number of pages10
JournalArchives of Women's Mental Health
Volume25
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

  • Cognition
  • Depression
  • Mood disorders
  • PMS/premenstrual dysphoric disorder
  • Pregnancy and postpartum

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